Comment

Jenny Hocking
Understanding Albanese’s mandate

On election night, December 2, 1972, Gough Whitlam gave his first speech as prime minister-elect from a tree supported by hastily erected scaffolding in the backyard of the Whitlams’ Cabramatta home. If the imagery was perfect for the election of the first Labor government in 23 years, so was Whitlam’s invocation of “the mandate” in its broadest sense, driving the new government’s agenda for change. “The government,” he said, “will have a mandate from the people to carry out all its programs.”

The reference to the mandate from the earliest moment of the new government, and throughout its obstructed terms, attests to both its centrality in Whitlam’s political thinking and his expectation that the Coalition, now in unwelcome opposition, would claim a “mandate” to block his legislation in the Senate. Which it did, in unprecedented numbers.

Whitlam’s claim to “a mandate from the people to carry out all its programs” is both a statement of political intent and a pointer to the role of “the people” in the notion of the mandate. Seen in this way, the mandate is much more than simply an expression of electoral algebra. Rather, it is a compact, a relationship between government and governed, between the promises made before the election and implemented after it. This essential democratic link between policy articulation and governmental action constitutes the mandate as more than just a capacity to form government but, as Whitlam described it, “a command to perform”.

Anthony Albanese’s landslide second election victory has generated much commentary about the mandate and its contested, often misunderstood, application. The scale of Labor’s victory, delivering it 94 seats and just 43 to the Coalition, has given that rather tired conceptual re-run added piquancy. The Labor Party’s 19-seat majority, defying the “curse of incumbency” that had seen several governments tumble in recent years, has already generated a wealth of commentary about how the party will use its “mandate”. Will it be cautious or ambitious in “using its mandate”? Does it have a mandate to “do what it wants” or merely to preside over the administration of government? Does a decisive victory bring “high but fair expectations” to be bold, even to push through reforms that were not advanced at the election?

Although often seen as simply a rhetorical device, used by governments to secure parliamentary support for their legislative program and by oppositions and minor parties to deny it, the mandate is a more conceptual notion, reflecting its origins as a philosophical construct concerning moral and ethical legitimacy. In its emergence as a more contestable political doctrine, the mandate is a legitimating bridge between the policy expectations of the electorate and a party’s actions in government. Albanese’s mandate to pursue particular policies comes less from the size of the electoral victory than from the clear articulation of those policies before it.

Whether a government can actually deliver on its mandate, in the context of an often fractious Senate and inevitable controversy over major initiatives, is where politics takes over. As former Western Australian premier Geoff Gallop says, “mandates are only as good as capacity to deliver”.

Much of the recent commentary presumes the size of the election victory to be synonymous with the size of the mandate, divorcing the mandate from its policy dimension and reducing it to a matter of political calculus. The mandate is, however, a more complex political construct and, like all political constructs, its meaning is slippery, contestable and inconsistently applied. This reflects the element of legitimacy and authority that the word itself conveys, something every political party tries to commandeer for itself.

Long-serving prime minister Robert Menzies, for instance, facing a hostile Senate, invoked the government’s mandate in the House of Representatives to ward off Senate obstruction, as did John Howard following the 1987 election in which the Australian Democrats in the Senate claimed a “competing mandate”. After its first election victory, in 1972, the Whitlam government faced the most obstructive Senate in our history, which had not gone to an election that year and proclaimed nonetheless it had its own “mandate” to destroy the government.

Anthony Albanese spoke to this confusion when he said the government would adhere to the agenda it put forward at the election, explicitly framing its mandate in terms of those policies. On that measure, the government’s amended superannuation tax for balances over $3 million will be implemented because Labor had put the tax forward in its last term. Climate Minister Chris Bowen similarly says the parameters of the government’s climate mitigation policies are “the election mandate we sought and received”.

Not surprisingly, voices from the Coalition on this question have been few. Queensland LNP Senator Susan McDonald makes a rare exception, valiantly insisting the government’s mandate is actually thinner than it appears. McDonald argues that, since Labor’s primary vote was 35 per cent, and its victory was therefore delivered on preferences, the “electoral fortunes of the Coalition are not as doomed as some … are supposing”. This denialism is a marker of the mountain Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has to climb.

The post-election commentaries on the Albanese government’s mandate have largely focused on the scale of Labor’s election victory, suggesting this “thumping victory” should drive an equally “thumping mandate” for reform and an ambitious policy program. The Albanese government was criticised in its first term for being too centrist, too timid, lacking in vision and lacking in depth of reform. Nevertheless, there are several critical areas of reform already under way. The second-term Albanese government can build on these reforms, such as the transmission to renewable energy, the Future Made in Australia framework and the National Housing Accord.

There is further scope for structural reform through the government’s election commitment to a productivity review, and the outcome of the productivity round table will open further avenues for action. Economist and former head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Rod Sims argues, however, that the government cannot claim a mandate for specific fiscal initiatives, such as action on negative gearing, the GST and broad-ranging tax reform, which it did not take to the election. To pursue those, he says, it will need “to seek a new mandate in 2028 for true tax reform”.

While no one would reasonably suggest that a government cannot go outside its election platform as circumstances change and new issues arise – Covid 19 being a good example – nor can it claim a mandate to introduce policies that it did not put to the electorate, even less so for policies it specifically ruled out. Governments can, of course, introduce policies they specifically disavowed during the campaign; however, they do so at significant political risk. There is no shortage of Australian prime ministers led straight out of office by an ill-advised broken promise.

Tony Abbott insisted there would be no cuts to education, health, the ABC or SBS immediately before the 2013 election, and then slashed their budgets once in government. Julia Gillard’s promise during the 2010 election campaign that “there will be no carbon tax” fatally undermined her minority government.

The Albanese government, on the other hand, amended the stage three tax cuts that it had pledged to maintain, without occasioning any real political damage. It was difficult to argue against a shift in a regressive tax schedule to give more to those who needed it most during a cost-of-living crisis.

Nevertheless, even the most decisive victory does not mean a government can safely claim a mandate to do whatever it likes. Who could forget Campbell Newman’s disastrous gutting of the Queensland public service, in direct breach of his electoral mandate, which saw him lose office after just one term. This feeds into a broader discussion about the mandate and responsible government and, most importantly at a time of growing political cynicism, the issue of trust in government to meet its election promises.

The importance of this element of trust, implicit in the notion of a mandate, should not be underestimated. Make no mistake – voters notice when promises are kept. Take former Victorian Labor premier Daniel Andrews’ insistence on tearing up the East West Link contract that had been rushed through the Victorian parliament by the then Coalition government just weeks before the caretaker period began. Against all expectations, keeping this promise proved electorally popular and “presenting Andrews as someone who delivered on promises” became something of a mantra for the government, which went on to win three elections.

While the mandate conveys authority and legitimacy over the parties that form government, its inconsistent use as a political tool has seen minor parties and even the Senate claim their own “mandates”. This has been given added weight by the rise of the Greens and minor parties, campaigning on their capacity to negotiate government policies in the Senate. An increasing number of people vote differently in the House and the Senate, giving weight to the view that the Senate has its own mandate. This is a sophistry, of course: the mandate is not divisible and there are not multiple mandates. Its relationship is to the party that forms government and not to the calculus of individual party votes.

In our bicameral system, in which governments are formed in the House of Representatives and legislation must also be passed by the Senate, the counter-mandate claim serves as a powerful rhetorical tool, however. This simply strips the mandate of its essential meaning as a relationship between the formation of government, its policies and the electorate. While the Senate does have competing political parties with which the government has to negotiate, that’s not a mandate, it’s just politics.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on July 12, 2025 as "On understanding Albanese’s mandate".

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